Don't let the retro styling fool you. Although they look like comic extra rejects from a '70s variety show with some heavy metal updating, the magician-trickster-funny-men of "Elephant Room" are goofy originals, very much of our makeshift moment. No point in trying to categorize the show, which opened Sunday at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Created by Trey Lyford, Geoff Sobelle and Steve Cuiffo, the entire production is a sleight of hand. With a smattering of magic, sketch comedy and cat-and-mouse with the audience, the trio of performers, working under the aliases Daryl Hannah, Dennis Diamond and Louie Magic, foster the illusion of a complete theatrical offering.

Long known for being genteel and charmingly indifferent to headline news, the New Yorker in recent years has earned a reputation of skewering political and cultural figures with its cover art. Barry Blitt's infamous 2008 Barack and Michelle Obama fist bump cover poking fun at the perception of the then-presidential candidate, for instance, spawned countless satiric imitations. With "Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See" (Abrams), art director Françoise Mouly gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the selection process.

Daytime television has "The View. " Now YouTube has its own chatfest called "IMO. " The Web show, whose initials are recognizable as "In My Opinion" to those fluent in messaging shorthand, deals with dating, texting faux pas and other pressing topics relevant to teens and tweens. Its hosts are nearly as well known to these young viewers as ABC's Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg are to an older generation. Before taking her seat on "IMO's" canary yellow couch, 16-year-old Bethany Mota launched a YouTube channel that has attracted nearly 85 million views of her fashion and beauty tips.

The heavy-duty Emmy "for your consideration" onslaught is in full, garish swing. Network and cable outlets are pulling out all the stops, weighing down the mailboxes of the voting members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences with lavish DVD mailers. They're filling the landscape with billboards, bus wraps, newspaper ads and oversized posters touting the award-worthiness of shows such as NBC's "Smash," AMC's "Breaking Bad" and Showtime's"Homeland. " Even a long shot such as Whitney Cummings is prominently promoted, despite the fact that NBC's"Whitney" is not a hit with critics or audiences.

BELLEFONTE, Pa. - Inside the courtroom of Jerry Sandusky's trial, the testimony is graphic. Intimate touches. Oral sex. Shower scenes. The news media has descended on the Centre County Courthouse to capture the trial in words and images. But because Pennsylvania bans cameras in most courtrooms, a trio of sketch artists employed by the media organizations offers a peek into an emotional world. One captures a distraught accuser with his face in his hands after an aggressive cross-examination.

Mitt Romney's spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom thinks the makers of Etch-A-Sketch should “appreciate everything I did for them,” by repopularizing their product when he used the drawing toy in a metaphor about transitioning from a primary to a general election campaign. [Watch the video below.] Fehrnstrom's statement - “I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign….you can kind of shake it up and restart all over again” - gave life to the persistent knock on Romney that he lacks authenticity.

"God Is the Bigger Elvis," Rebecca Cammisa's Oscar-nominated short subject, which comes to HBO Thursday -- Holy Thursday, by the Catholic calendar -- tells the story of Dolores Hart, who turned her back on Hollywood stardom in the early 1960s to become a Benedictine nun. "I often wonder why the Lord gave me such an opportunity to audition for Elvis," wonders Hart, who still gets and answers fan mail. ("What are you doing now?" one young admirer writes.) She made her movie debut opposite Presley in the 1957 "Loving You," reteamed with him the next year in "King Creole," and made eight more movies and starred on Broadway before entering the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Conn., of which she is now the mother prioress.

Etch-A-Sketch's place in the political dialogue may be more permanent than we thought. A week after the children's drawing toy bedeviled the Mitt Romney campaign, it's being used against another Massachusetts Republican -- Scott Brown. In a new campaign video (watch below) , Democratic Senate hopeful in Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren says that Wall Street and lobbyists "want Etch-A-Sketch senators," suggesting her rival is one of them. "They want the ones who will clear the screen and change their minds to do whatever Big Money tells them to do," Warren says in the video.

Even Joe Biden couldn't resist using the "Etch A Sketch" gaffe to needle GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, as he made a broader attack against the candidate and his party for their support for a dramatic overhaul of Medicare. In the second in a series of campaign speeches by the vice president meant to outline the Obama camp's general election message, Biden said there was "no daylight" between Romney and congressional leaders like Rep. Paul D. Ryan on the issue of entitlements, saying both were determined to "dismantle" Medicare and Social Security.